Saturday, June 20, 2015

I publish a blog for two days and have the third day off. But on my day off, I work much harder, longer hours.

I got out my pens and crayolas and doodling, told myself -- Em, YOU control what you do. YOU own YOU !!! BOINK -- remembering the funny-wonderful gals in that kooky-fun movie -- I found myself dancing along with them.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Hey, what's the latest news about driverless cars? About a year ago, these were the latest photos.

Driverless cars are going to change the way our streets and roads look. When will we be able to get them? Who's going to make them?

Making cars, selling 'em is four times bigger than the smart phone industry. Whoever creates the driverless car that wins the market race will win a HUGE jackpot.

Google has a "Lab X" and is zooming ahead, pouring millions into autonomous cars. So is Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, and Ford, while Apple is mile-a-minute speeding into the iCar. Rumors say they're buying "Tesla" -- another big time, innovative car maker.

California already has rules for self-driving cars. In the San Francisco area, Google cars, having been tested on 700,000 miles, now watch for pedestrians as well as human drivers.

What's ahead for you and me? A fair amount of promotional jabber, that's for sure, but no dates yet, about when we will see them. It could be a decade, even two decades away.

I don't think we'll be buying them. We'll phone some company that provides them -- subscribe on a monthly or annual fee basis. There won't be taxi's. A car will appear at your door; a chip in it will make sure it lets you know when it's arrived. More than likely, there won't be chauffeurs anymore, or any kind of driver jobs. They'll go the way of postmen and elevator operators.

Remember, our society is aging. A couple of decades from now, more than 20 percent of us will be over 65. Yay -- traveling will be safer when us elderly folks get around in cars that drive themselves. Driving might be like riding a horse -- just something rich people do for fun on weekends.

What will a driverless car look like?

There's no reason for them to look like today’s cars. Most trips will involve taking one person a short distance, so if Google wins it will look more or less like this.

Since Apple's very hush hush, but hell-bent on winning the market, I was envisioning a car that's plucked from the Steve Job tree.

I'll bet the charger for an Apple iCar won't work with other brands of electric cars, but who cares -- tip toe-oogling around the Internet, I bumped in this preview marked:

Sunday, June 14, 2015

You and I know, full well, that last year, a devastating Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed thousands. What about today -- is or isn't, the disease under control?

Numbers tell us things are much better in the seriously afflicted three countries. Liberia, after 42 days of no new cases, was officially declared free of Ebola. In a latest report, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that in the last week of May there were 2 new cases reported, down from 35 cases the week prior. Nine of the current cases were from Guinea, and three were from Sierra Leone. In Italy, the stricken nurse continues to recover and her 19 contacts are being monitored. Globally, there have been over 27,000 infections and 11,149 deaths.

At the peak of the outbreak last fall, the deadly disease was infecting about 400 people a week in Liberia alone. The worst seems to be over. The Pentagon has pulled out all but 100 of the 2,800 American troops sent to assist the authorities in the region. As one U.S. military official put it: “We got a handle on Ebola a lot quicker than anyone expected.”

Was the danger exaggerated?

Some of the warnings by public officials seem, in retrospect, overstated. In September 2014, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Ebola could infect as many as 1.4 million people; when President Obama asked Congress for $6 billion in funding to help combat the disease, he called the epidemic a “national security priority.” The doomsaying may seem excessive now, but it focused the world’s attention on a disaster that was threatening to spiral out of control. It was the worst Ebola outbreak in history, killing five times more people than all previous Ebola epidemics combined.

How was it contained?

By educating West Africans on how Ebola is transmitted, and by aggressive efforts to isolate and treat the infected. Doctors and nurses learned from scratch how to treat Ebola and how to contain it. More than 10,000 volunteers from around the world, helped.

Did the U.S. military help?

Our troops sent to Liberia built 11 clinic centers. But by the time they finished the first one, infection rates were already declining. The 11 clinics they built treated just 28 Ebola patients; nine centers haven’t had a single case. The U.S. Agency for International Development said, "Abundance of caution was warranted. U.S. troops also helped by training hundreds of health-care workers and by airlifting supplies and medical teams around the region."

What’s next for the countries affected?

The first priority will be rebuilding shattered health-care systems. The epidemic killed 10 percent of the West Africa's health-care workers, and also used up most of every available medical resource. As a result, around 250,000 children across the region missed out on basic vaccinations, raising the specter of an outbreak of measles or another disease.

What about the hunt for a vaccine?

The current containment of Ebola prevented scientists from developing a vaccine. (Drugs cannot be tested during an outbreak). At present more than a dozen Ebola vaccine clinical trials are underway, that are expected to help find a vaccine for the disease. (For more details, click the link.)

Though the threat of Ebola remains, (the virus lurks in infected bats and other animals,) if there’s another outbreak, West Africa, as well as the rest of the world, will be much, much better prepared to respond.

Are you relieved? I am. Even so, I am hoping for a summary, a statement from the head of the World Health Organization.

HOW I GOT HERE

I started out as a modern dancer, contemporary, but balletic. I didn't want to be a swan, or a barefoot dancer. I wanted to dance to the music that thrilled me as a child, and made me want to be a dancer.

I began writing in the truck my first husband, Mark Ryder and I bought, in order to carry our set, props, and costumes for a long one-night-stands tour -- eighty-eighty performances in eighty-eight cities.

We were performing "Romeo and Juliet" nightly, but our marriage was breaking up. Every day while our stage manager drove us two-hundred miles or so to the next booking, I'd type a detailed description of last night -- what we did well, what we argued about, and a travelogue about the town, and comments from the people at the nightly party.

Recovering from the trip and the divorce, I sent my "car book" to a friend who said -- "Em, it's great,but ..." And that became rewrites, and another book. Then, my marriage to actor John Cullum, and then a play that got produced, and another book, big hopes because a famous agent loved it.The title and concept changed five times -- now it's been published, finally, as "Somebody, Woman of the Century." You can buy it, or read about it and my other five novels on Emily Frankel.com